


What Got in the Way

by Asallia



Category: Love Live! School Idol Project, Love Live! Sunshine!!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Developing Relationship, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Therapy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:47:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27584981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asallia/pseuds/Asallia
Summary: Dia Kurosawa is a couples therapist with little time for romances of her own, much more compelled by fixing those of the wealthy clients who walk in her door. Mari Ohara and Kanan Matsuura are a couple on the edge of falling apart five years into their relationship, desperate to find what's missing between them.What none of them expect is that the solution to Kanan and Mari's troubles is staring them in the face from the moment they enter Dia's office.
Relationships: Kurosawa Dia & Kurosawa Ruby, Kurosawa Dia/Matsuura Kanan, Kurosawa Dia/Matsuura Kanan/Ohara Mari, Kurosawa Dia/Ohara Mari, Kurosawa Ruby/Tsushima Yoshiko, Matsuura Kanan/Ohara Mari
Comments: 14
Kudos: 70





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> High time I wrote some serious OTP content, right? I'll be putting out chapters of this pretty slowly, but I'm excited for where it's going. These three deserve to fall in love and be okay. :') As always when I post a serious project like this, huge thanks to fellow Aqours Third Years Expert™ [Ottermelon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ottermelon) for beta reading.

Couples counseling was a cushy gig.

Most people wouldn’t have assumed as much – bickering lovers and beleaguered marriages often tended to be subject matter that few would touch with a ten-foot pole, yet alone confine themselves with inside the walls of an inoffensively decorated office.

Dia Kurosawa, however, found a certain kind of solace in it. Never one for relationships, her dedication towards her own career over the pursuit of love had given her a kind of outsider’s perspective on romance. Fixing a broken marriage required the same skillset that it took to, say, solve the Sunday morning crossword. People were rather simple, at least in her mind; every individual could be broken down to their core components, a simple set of wants and desires and fears that could be unearthed and subsequently understood. Once both parties knew what they wanted, working out an amenable set of compromises was as easy as putting together the pieces.

Simple, quick, to the point. No fuss or emotional investment needed, just a bill and a polite showing of the exit door at the end of every session. With that foolproof method, Dia had clawed and fought her way up the ladder, all the way to a private practice with her name emblazoned on the door in gold lettering, far up in a Tokyo high rise.

Accordingly, the patients she’d been getting recently had been of the wealthier assortment, and with wealth came complications – not only were there egos and hearts on the line, but fortunes and family businesses. Still, Dia cherished the challenge all the same.

Take today, for instance – with clouds mottling the sky and threatening Tokyo’s residents with what seemed to be an increasingly likely thunderstorm, Dia was hardly concerned with the influx of patients she’d be expecting as the hours dragged on. Rather, she was huddled up serenely on the couch in her office with a cup of freshly-brewed tea and patient intake forms laid out in front of her.

“Ohara…” Dia muttered to herself as she traced her newest client’s name with a finger. “Mari Ohara. Interesting.”

Everyone knew the Oharas in Tokyo, least of all because of their ostentatious hotel chain mottling the cityscape. Mari herself wasn’t a name known to Dia, but she could easily envision the type: some vapid socialite with a hundred dollar manicure and a sense of entitlement roughly equal to the size of her daddy’s pocketbook. Lord help her partner, who seemed to be little more than a personal trainer.

Still, money was money. This was just another challenge she’d get past.

The time was 9:54, signaling that she had roughly eleven minutes before her patients would likely be arriving without a sorry to their name. Smiling to herself wryly, Dia set aside the forms in a neat pile and opened her laptop, elated by the chance to fulfill her guilty pleasure. A bookmark ostensibly leading to stock information was already waiting for her, and she readily clicked it to pull up the last thing anyone would expect her to be checking: idol message boards. It didn’t take long before _HarashoBride1_ was typing away something fierce, arguing with other forum members about the state of the industry and the merits of various upcoming acts – not to mention engaging in scurrilous gossip about the retired legends.

Dia looked at the clock: ten exactly. She should’ve been ready to usher in her patients, but a quick glance to the lounge signaled that they were nowhere to be seen. She could fudge it, she figured – there was an impassioned monologue on the merits of Elichika waiting to be written, after all.

Except, it wasn’t long into her work when she realized her mistake.

“GOOD MOOOOORNING~” came a booming, gossamer voice with all the perfectly-pitched vibrato of an opera singer in the flesh. Dia jumped straight out of her seat, just narrowly catching her laptop before it plummeted to a swift demise on the floor.

“How did you get in here!?” she snapped, voice tense as she double- and triple-checked her laptop for any cracks or smudges and closed the browser window with a shaky hand. Her hyperventilation slowed down after a moment, but her racing heart continued unabated.

“Through the open door,” the woman replied wryly. “I assumed you’d want your ten o’clock to come in… unless you were running late, that is.”

Dia looked up in offense at the very _thought_ , but what she saw rendered her far too speechless to formulate any sort of a reply. In front of her stood a woman straight out of a picture book, golden blond hair like wheatfields flowing down to her mid-back with just the faintest curl. She was clad in a sundress that just barely suggested the forms of her curves, porcelain legs accentuated by the white heels she wore. On her face, she wore a cheshire grin a mile wide.

If Dia were any less professional of a woman, her eyes would have been bugging right out of their sockets. Instead, she merely gave a polite cough and composed herself.

“I’m- I’m so sorry,” she finally willed herself to speak. “I seem to have lost track of the time. You’re… Ohara-san, I gather?”

“Oh please,” the woman replied with a childish _pfft_ for measure. “To my friends, it’s Mari.”

Dia raised an eyebrow bemusedly.

“Well, that’s good to know, Ohara-san.” The woman – Mari, evidently – gave no discernible reaction, something that Dia made note of.

_Outgoing, sociable. Few if any boundaries. Annoying, most likely._

“May I ask where…” Dia trailed off as she peeked her head through the door again to the lobby.

“Kanan is?” Mari finished for her. “Oh, I’m sure she’s off doing god knows what. She really knows how to take her sweet time,” she added acerbically.

“It’s because you wouldn’t sit still long enough to let me pay for parking,” came a clearly irritated voice accompanied by the sound of the lobby door shutting. Soon enough a woman who was clearly Kanan Matsuura strode in, and Dia held few doubts why a Tokyo socialite would be dating a lowly gym rat: she was equally breathtaking.

Though Kanan wore a simple blouse and a pair of jeans, the definition of her arms made clear exactly how well-built she was. With her hair tied back in a ponytail, Dia had a clear view of her face, a swirl of femininity and more stereotypically masculine features.

It was the sex. Dia was at least ninety percent sure of it.

“What are they going to do, Kanan?” Mari shot back snidely, “Tow a Rolls-Royce? I’m pretty sure that’s illegal.”

“I- wait, what?” Kanan asked bemusedly. “Of course it’s legal, Mari. Maybe they _should_ tow it, just to teach you something! If it weren’t for me you’d already have wrecked the damn thing, and-“

A loud clearing of the throat was enough to shut Kanan up mid-sentence, coaxing the lovers from each other’s gazes long enough for them to focus on Dia.

“Matsuura-san,” she greeted politely as she gestured to the couch. “Please, both of you take a seat. It’s clear we have… some work ahead of us.”

Kanan just scoffed at Mari and threw herself down onto the couch, though Mari seemed rather pleased as she took her place despite the circumstances – was it haughtiness or spite?

Regardless, Dia knew she’d have to exchange her normal script for something a bit more improvisational.

“Now, I normally start with some polite small talk, just to make people feel more at ease. I ask about the weather, make sure you got here alright. That being said…” Dia looked pointedly to the two of them, then clicked her pen for effect. “I don’t really believe that the two of you are the kind for formalities. How about we just get down to brass tacks?”

“Anything to get out of here more quickly,” Kanan replied. Her face softened for a moment, though, long enough to shoot Dia a seemingly sincere smile. “No offense, of course.”

“None taken. And you, Ohara-san?” Dia turned to Mari, only to realize that Mari had already been staring back. “… Ohara-san?”

“You’re a tough cookie,” Mari finally spoke, a fey look to her smile. “I feel like I’m looking at a brick wall when I stare at you.”

Dia frowned. “Are you attempting to deflect?”

“Mari, this was your idea. Can you _please_ take something seriously for once in your fucking life?”

Silence befell the room as soon as Kanan spoke, but the smile didn’t fade from Mari’s upturned lips.

“See _why_ it was my idea?” she remarked wryly.

Okay, so they weren’t going to play by that script either. That was okay – this kind of thing was exactly what improvisation is about.

“Tell me, Matsuura-san, what makes you say that Ohara-san can’t be serious?”

A heavy, performative sigh. Clearly, Kanan was waiting for just this moment, no matter how much she might claim she hadn’t wanted to be here.

“Everything is a game to her.”

Dia frowned. “Could you try using _‘I feel’_ statements, Matsuura-san?”

A look said that Kanan found the concept silly, though clearly not enough for her to fight it.

“Okay. I _feel_ that Mari acts like she’s living in a la-la land made of money and luxury. I _feel_ that she refuses to acknowledge that she lives in real life and has to act accordingly. How’s that?”

Dia stayed silent for a moment, then looked down at her notepad to hastily scribble away until she’d written down notes.

_Has a chip on her shoulder, resents ~~money~~ privilege._

When Dia finally looked up, Kanan seemed tense.

“I promise you have nothing to worry about,” Dia attempted to reassure her. “I’m just jotting down a few stray thoughts. It makes it easier for me to connect the dots.”

“If you say so,” Kanan replied with her brows knit. “You just have that… judge-y librarian thing going on. It makes me scared of you.”

“Oh, she’s just a silent observer kind of person,” Mari chimed in sweetly. “I know the type. A little brusk but with a good heart, bookworm, tutored kids in college, that kind of thing. It’s the whole ‘I’m desperate to show my parents that I wasn’t a mistake’ package. And… an older sister she’s scared of falling behind, am I right?”

Dia laughed, but she was hardly amused.

“Younger sister. Now, Ohara-san…”

“Oooooh,” Mari crooned. “My turn under the spotlight, huh? Are you gonna make me tell you about the time my father said I’d never amount to anything?”

Dia crooked an eyebrow. “Did he?”

“No, but it would’ve made for a _great_ sob story.”

“Can you PLEASE be serious, Mari?”

Dia held up a hand to quiet Kanan.

“Ohara-san, I can see that your… _attitude_ towards things seems to be a sensitive subject for your partner. Why do you think she feels that way?”

Mari hummed, a finger on her chin. “Maybe it’s something to do with my inability to be honest with my feelings, bottling them all up until they come out in an explosive rage. Or maybe it’s just because she’s mad she can’t read me. Maybe both!”

“You’re very up front about that,” Dia remarked in as neutral a tone as she could manage. “Are you proud of those elements of yourself?”

“Life’s too short to dislike anything about myself, good or bad,” Mari offered, an apathetic shrug serving as veracity. She seemed to genuinely mean that, and Dia wasn’t sure if it was distasteful or admirable.

Or, god forbid, both.

“Okay, but what about the you that your partner sees?” Dia asked pointedly. “Do you like _that_ version of yourself?”

Mari’s lips curled upward, evidently quite pleased with the corner she’d been backed into – not that Dia was expecting things to prove so easy.

“Kanan certainly does, even if she won’t always admit it.”

“Of course I do,” Kanan spat back. “Despite your best efforts.”

“Do you love her, Matsuura-san?”

It was barely perceptible, but Dia heard a brief hitch in Kanan’s breath, a sudden jerk to her motions accompanying it. She’d hit a nerve, clearly.

_Commitment issues._

“Of course I love her,” Kanan eventually replied in a steady voice. “More than anything else. I just… wish that it could be as simple as that.”

Mari said nothing. Pen to paper, a rush of scratches eking out progressively more insight.

“And why is that?”

A heavy sigh said more than enough, but Kanan marched on nevertheless.

“It was just so much easier when it was a young love thing, you know? Back then we saw each other for who we each were, but now…”

“Adulthood has a way of complicating things,” Dia finished for her. Kanan chortled.

“That’s putting it lightly. I just… miss that, you know? Money, appearances, ambitions… it all gets in the way of what we had.”

“What exactly is it that you want back, Matsuura-san?”

For a moment, Kanan became lost in her thoughts, a pensive look on her face.

“I want to feel like we’re enough for each other again.”

At that, Mari laughed bitterly. Dia turned to her.

“I sense that you have an objection.”

“What Kanan isn’t saying is that she _is_ enough for me. The issue is that I’m not enough for her.”

“Of course you are, Mari, I-“

“Oh, don’t play coy about it,” Mari spat. She turned to Dia, an entirely fabricated smile masking her anger. “Do you have anyone you love, Dia?”

The invocation of her first name provoked Dia to bristle, but she didn’t say anything.

“I hardly think this is about me, Ohara-san,” she replied coolly.

“I’m paying good money for this time, so just humor me,” Mari replied. A fair argument if ever there was one, Dia supposed.

“Not at the current moment, no. Do you think that makes me unqualified?”

Mari shook her head. “No, I just can’t help but be curious. I’m placing an awful lot of faith in you, don’t you agree? It’s only fair that I understand where it’s going.”

“I don’t believe that’s how faith works,” Dia replied with a wry smile.

_Skeptical, but wants to be given a reason to be trusting._

Dia turned back to Kanan. “Would you like to offer your perspective, Matsuura-san?”

“Not really,” Kanan offered up with a humored laugh. “But… that was exactly my issue, you know? She’s enough for me, but once you throw in everything else, it stops being about her. Her family’s so stuck up and snooty. Even if I _was_ good enough for them, and I’m not,” she interjected with a chuckle, “they’d want all this flashy, gaudy performative crap. I can’t stand it.”

Dia pondered a moment, reflecting on everything Kanan had said.

“Ohara-san, is that how you’d characterize it? Flashy, gaudy?”

Mari rolled her eyes.

“It’s not my fault us Oharas have an appreciation for the finer things in life. Just because my parents are a nightmare doesn’t mean they don’t have _some_ points.”

“But this all came to a head recently. Is that a fair wager?” Dia asked.

“Yes.”

“No.”

With a heavy sigh, Dia turned to Mari.

“You say it did. Why?”

“We had a fight.”

“It was _not_ a fight, Mari-“

“Well she didn’t ask you,” Mari interrupted petulantly. “I was upset because it was our five year anniversary last month. And she didn’t propose.”

Dia looked to Kanan, an eyebrow raised. Evidently, they were in sync enough by now that she obediently sighed and got to responding.

“It’s insane,” she began. “I never said I don’t want to get married someday, but she got it in her head that I was gonna pop the question! I never actually did anything wrong, I swear.”

“You knew how important anniversaries are to me,” Mari shot back. “Don’t act like you didn’t know what I was expecting!”

“Yeah, and it scared the shit out of me! I’m not ready to get fucking married, Mari!”

The two of them were yelling by now, exchanging accusations and barbs with a finely-honed vitriol. It would have been admirable if it weren’t so hard to watch, and Dia knew she had to put a stop to it, somehow.

“BE QUIET!”

That did the trick nicely. Both Kanan and Mari were stunned into silence by Dia’s forceful outburst, and she took a brief moment to compose herself before she began talking.

“As long as you’re in this room with me, I expect civility. You’re both adults, so act like it. Do you understand?” Her patients vigorously nodded. “Good. Now…” Dia trailed off as she tapped her pen against her notepad rhythmically. “We’re short on time and there’s a lot to cover. I think that what we have here is a case of mismatched expectations. It’s not unsolvable, but it will take patience. In the meantime, I have a simple homework assignment for the two of you: have a date night this week.”

“We already have date nights-“

“Not your usual fare,” Dia interrupted Mari calmly. “Ohara-san, what was the first date you two went on?”

A brief pause, not quite deafening but certainly noticeable.

“I don’t remember,” she eventually admitted, almost under her breath.

“We were supposed to be studying for an exam,” Kanan chimed in. “We were walking to the library, but before we got there we saw this cute little hole-in-the-wall café we’d never noticed before. I insisted on paying even though I only had like ten dollars left in my bank account,” she remarked with warm laughter. “But the way her eyes lit up when I offered was so intoxicating, you know? We spent hours just… chatting there. I was so fascinated by her that I completely forgot about my drink. It went cold before I’d even had two sips. And then I bombed the test. Totally worth it, too.”

The corners of Dia’s lips curled upward at the sweetness of the memory, so vivid a picture that she could imagine the two of them laughing away in a corner table for hours on end.

“Is that place in town?”

“Yeah,” Kanan said. “It was in Shibuya, I think. I’m not sure what street it was on, though.”

“Why don’t the two of you go look for it? Get some coffee together, spend a bit of time away from everything else. I don’t expect it to be the same, but I want the two of you to get a sense of where you began. I get the feeling that it might provide a good foundation for our next meeting.”

To punctuate the finality of her request, Dia closed her laptop resolutely, letting the clap of the screen against the keyboard signal the end of their time.

Mari’s face was nigh inscrutable, but she nodded all the same. So did Kanan, if a bit more joyfully. The sight almost reminded Dia of a puppy searching for its owner’s approval, and the thought saddened her somewhere in the recesses of her mind.

“One last thing. Have you two given any thought about what you’d like the result of your time with me to be?”

Somehow, Dia expected Kanan to be the one who would reply to that. Despite not being the one to desire counseling in the first place, she’d been the only one to wholeheartedly embrace the notion in the heat of the moment. Mari, on the other hand, still held an aloofness to her thoughts and feelings that Dia knew she would have trouble cracking.

So when Mari’s lips parted, voice uncharacteristically contemplative, Dia felt hope.

“I want to find what’s missing between us,” she said. “And then make things better.”


	2. Chapter 2

It wasn’t until well after dinnertime that Dia finally managed to uncouple herself and her work long enough to shut down the office and head home. These late nights at work were far from a rarity for her, but if anything came welcomed. The soft neon glow that lit up the streets at night offered a strange sort of serenity, and Dia cherished the way they lit up her path as she walked along. Around her, a scattered few flocked about, mostly other office workers returning to home in a hurry, undoubtedly eager for a hot meal and the comfort of a loved one. The thought put a smile on Dia’s face, though she quickly caught it and trained the corners of her lips back down.

The romances of others had never been of interest to her; it was why she’d become a couple’s counselor in the first place. She played the role of the skeptical outsider, never prone towards seeing the world with rose-colored glasses when she could scrutinize it instead. She was content with that.

Finally Dia arrived at her Tokyo apartment, and she lingered only a moment to enjoy the crisp evening air before she stepped inside the building and took the elevator up. She’d only just moved in, and the luxurious air of the place was still throwing her for a loop – even with all her parent’s money, she’d never dreamed of being able to blow so much on an astronomically high rent, yet alone getting to reap the benefits of doing so.

“I’m home!” she shouted as she opened the front door and made her way inside, kicking off her pumps and setting her handbag down.

“Hey onee-chan!” came a voice from the kitchen, and this time the smile that crossed Dia’s face was not beaten back down. She made her way towards the commotion, taking a hearty whiff as she did.

“Salmon?” she asked as she stepped inside, taking a moment to ruffle her sister’s hair playfully.

“Yep, I found a new pan sauce recipe and wanted to give it a go.” A brief pause, small yet easily discernible to Dia’s trained eye. “Yoshiko’s coming over, I hope that’s okay.”

Ah, of course. Dia only laughed.

“Better to ask forgiveness than permission?”

“Something like that,” Ruby replied with a wry smile. “If you’d prefer not I can tell her…”

“No, no,” Dia objected. “It’s okay. I won’t be a rude host.”

“Will you, though?”

Dia got up to start the tea kettle on the opposite side of the room, if only to hide the sneer that crossed her face at Ruby’s implication.

“It’s not my fault that she has poor table manners, Ruby. You need to establish clearer boundaries. It’s clear that she doesn’t respect the hospitality of others, which is a behavioral issue stemming from-“

“You’re doing it again, Dia,” Ruby interrupted rather harshly. “I’m not a patient.”’

Dia grimaced to herself. Ruby was right, as she so often was.

“Sorry. I don’t mean anything by it, I promise.” The tea kettle whistled in reply, and Dia took it off the burner. “Tea?”

“Raspberry,” Ruby responded, voice much more gentle. She’d already forgiven Dia for the lapse in judgement, just as she always did. She was too good to Dia.

Their mealtimes were always an intricately choreographed dance borne of sisterly familiarity, each flitting about the room as they prepared the meal. That Ruby even waited this late to do so was a kindness Dia had never quite found a way to thank her for – though certainly giving her a place to live was more than enough in turn.

By the time they had everything ready and places set at the table Ruby’s girlfriend of one year finally arrived, brandishing a leather jacket and ripped jeans as her outfit of choice - whether to spite Dia or simply a fashion statement, Dia was too aggrieved to say. She just did her best to put on a smile as she joined them at the table, entirely unapproving of the relationship yet knowing perfectly well that she had little power to do anything about it.

“So…” Dia finally spoke, interrupting an uneasy silence that had stretched on since they’d sat down and filled their plates. “What do you do for a living, Yoshiko-san?”

The question came off innocuous, spoken as casually as could be, but Dia could see Yoshiko looking nervous in her peripheral. The sight sent some small amount of joy through her heart.

“I, um…” Yoshiko’s voice trailed off into a sputter as she tried to formulate words.

“She’s in the entertainment industry,” Ruby responded in an even voice, a noticeable glance thrown to Yoshiko in the process.

“Yeah,” Yoshiko confirmed. “I host a show for my little…” A pause came as her breath hitched. Dia noticed but only cocked an eyebrow. “For my humble little audience,” she finally finished.

“Oh, but you shouldn’t sell yourself so short,” Dia replied. “I mean, having your own show? What channel?”

“... Twitch,” Yoshiko replied after a brief pause, her face expressionless.

“I can’t say I’m familiar with it, but that’s wonderful to hear all the same.” Dia took a bite of her salmon, savoring the complex flavors Ruby had imbued in it. Wonderful, as always. Truthfully she knew what that was, having been exposed to Ruby’s taste in entertainment, but chose to say nothing. “All that matters to me is that you’re able to provide for Ruby when the time comes.”

Under the table, she felt a light kick on her shin. The corners of her lips curled skyward.

“Onee-chan! Stop trying to fluster her!”

True enough, Yoshiko had a bright blossom painted across her cheeks, eyes intensely trained on her meal before her.

“I’m just teasing, Yoshiko-san. Don’t worry. Our professions share a lot in common, don’t you think?”

A bemused look greeted Dia when she turned to meet Yoshiko’s eyes.

“What, therapy?”

“They’re both about making others better,” Dia confirmed matter of factly. “I just go direct to the source.”

The glare Ruby shot Dia in that moment was well and truly ineffable, but it wasn’t all that genuine. This was a routine the two of them had practiced a million times, as much to Ruby’s chagrin as it was to Dia’s affection for her sister. After all, Ruby didn’t _have_ to bring her girlfriends home to Dia. She chose this instead of a movie date or dinner at Yoshiko’s, knowing perfectly well that she would be submitting her girlfriend to Dia’s poking and prodding. It was just her form of affection that she allowed Dia that much access despite her misgivings.

Still, the silence that stretched forth from Dia’s last say in the matter felt yawning, and nobody was particularly interested in attempting to fill it. If it had been just Ruby and Dia it would have been rather comfortable, so neither of them had much reason to do anything about it. Much of dinner stretched on that way.

“So… You’re a therapist,” Yoshiko finally said after the silence had undoubtedly become unbearable, dipping a toe in the waters of dinner conversation.

“So I am,” Dia said. It was a terse reply, but Yoshiko continued on seemingly unphased.

“Any cool patients?”

“You know I can’t just talk about my work like that,” Dia replied. A frown crossed her lips. “Therapy isn’t just some gossip machine.”

“Oh come on,” Ruby chimed in playfully. “You must have _something_ you can share.”

Curse her sister and her ineffable charm. Dia wracked her brain for a moment, though she knew perfectly well that only one of today’s sessions had been of even the most miniscule note.

“There was…” She paused, attempting to suss out the right words to use while steering clear of anything that might constitute a breach of ethics. “… a young couple, about my age. The kind of name you’d recognize.”

“What, like a politician or something?” Yoshiko asked.

“No, no one of any particular renown like that. I was just surprised because I didn’t expect anything so… ordinary from them.” Dia paused to take a sip of tea, her mind lingering on the image of Kanan and Mari sitting so close to one another yet looking light years apart. “No finances, no cheating or scummy behavior. Just two people who loved each other in different ways.”

Ruby smiled, somewhat coyly. “I don’t think you’ve ever had anything nice to say about a patient before.”

“I _don’t_ have anything nice to say,” Dia corrected her. “Just… nothing bad either. I feel drawn to their case.”

“Why?”

Dia turned, surprised that the question had come from Yoshiko’s lips rather than Ruby’s. She opened her mouth, attempting to conjure forth some kind of satisfactory answer. Yet the best she could do was to lamely repeat the question.

“Why?”

“Well yeah, there must be a reason,” Yoshiko elaborated. Her expression carried little amusement. “You don’t exactly seem like the type to get attached to someone else’s problems.”

Dia wrinkled her nose.

“Should I be offended by that?”

“If you want to be,” Yoshiko offered with a shrug. She poked at her salmon, gathering up a bite with some rice and gulping it down. “I’m just saying.”

“Well, I…” Dia trailed off, wracking her brain for an answer to Yoshiko’s question all the while. “I guess they just seem worth the effort. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s just my usual patients getting to me.”

“I don’t know how you could deal with stuffy rich people either way,” Yoshiko chimed in with a theatrical sneer on her face. “Anyone with that kind of money is vapid when you drill down far enough.”

“Not them,” Dia replied contemplatively. “I really feel like these two are different.”

“Well, I hope things go well,” Ruby said in that motherly tone of voice she seemed to wear so well these days. “I’m sure that if anyone can help them it’s you.”

Dia smiled softly.

“I hope so too.”

~=O=~

That night, as Dia settled into bed, she should’ve turned off the lights and gotten some sleep. She knew better than to strain her eyes with the harsh glare of a screen so late, yet she found herself drawn to her laptop, which she gently cradled in her lap and pried open. Her eyes instinctively slammed shut when met with its glow, but eventually she was able to pry them back open and navigate to the web browser. A few quick keystrokes later, and she’d already found the site she wanted – the official Ohara Hotels & Resorts website. She wasn’t sure what had drawn her to something so garish, but she found herself clicking away at about pages in the hopes of finding…

There. In the executive profiles sat Mari Ohara with some nonsense title that meant little to Dia, her smile a mile wide and body dressed in an impeccably cut suit. It felt as though it were the visage of an entirely different person from the one Dia had met that morning. The Mari Ohara in her office had been a tempest, playful and skeptical and carrying a sadness the likes of which Dia could only fathom at the moment. This Mari was none of those things, less a human being than a cardboard cutout of one. It was the person she was _supposed_ to be - for the public, for her family.

The thought made Dia sick to her stomach.

It was around that moment that she realized she wasn’t going to sleep for a little while. Her mind felt too clouded, too full of pesky thoughts and feelings. Instead, she opted to slip out of bed and put on some slippers, shuffling out of the room in little more than a nightgown. She wasn’t quite sure where she was even going, so it was a surprise to herself when she wound up in the kitchen, reaching into the cabinet for a wine glass and an unopened bottle of brandy that had languished there since she’d received it from a wealthy couple whose marriage she’d rescued some time ago.

Still, she wasn’t about to ignore the whim, even if it might have been irresponsible. It felt like the right night for… _something,_ no matter what form that mysterious something came in. The brandy cascaded into the glass like a waterfall, and Dia swirled the pool of liquid around for effect. She wasn’t sure what the action accomplished, but it felt like the right thing to do, just as it did to drift towards the patio and shrug on a coat before she stepped outside, drinking in the crisp night air and chasing it down with the brandy.

Peace. That was the word Dia felt most in that moment. The tranquility of Tokyo’s cityscape at nighttime was a salve to Dia, and she relished in looking out at it whenever she got the chance. Though her family carried its roots in the far-off ocean as an _amimoto_ family, she’d never felt at peace on their occasional sojourns to their ancestral home in the town of Uchiura. She needed towering skyscrapers and the distant blare of car horns in order to feel at home. Idly she sipped at her brandy, letting its warmth fight off the harsh chill in the air.

Before long, though, her peace was interrupted.

“Hey sis,” came a voice from the patio door, accompanied by the shutting of the glass and footsteps approaching. It was a voice that was decidedly _not_ Ruby’s.

“Never call me that again.”

In Dia’s peripheral, Yoshiko phased into being with a soda in one hand and the other leaning against the rail.

“I’m not huge on it myself, but something about getting a rile out of you is enjoyable.”

Dia elected not to deign that with a reply, though inwardly she found the thought somewhat respectable in its own irritating way.

"You know, I can tell why Ruby likes you."

"Why's that?" Yoshiko asked, despite the obviousness of the answer. Humoring Dia, or something to that effect.

"You're not beholden to rules or the expectations of others. A liberating feeling, I'm sure. Ruby's always felt that way too, unfortunately."

"You don't need to play the mom, you know," Yoshiko replied wryly.

"Someone had to." Dia heaved a sigh. "And our mother certainly wasn't going to."

"... Ah." Yoshiko gave Dia a look, one that carried empathy and a swirl of other feelings hidden just beneath the surface, out of Dia's reach.

She wanted to ask what they were, but then she thought better.

“What brought you out here?” she asked instead.

“Thought I’d enjoy the view you’ve got up here,” Yoshiko replied. “Damn nice.”

“Pardon me for saying so, but you’ve never exactly struck me as a ‘stop and smell the roses’ type.”

To her side, Dia caught the corners of Yoshiko’s mouth curling up.

“Alright then, can I ask you something?” Yoshiko said.

Dia mulled the possibility over in her mind for a brief moment.

“Sure, I can’t imagine I have much to lose.”

“You say that now,” Yoshiko cracked. She took a sip of her soda, stared out at the twinkling office lights that stretched out before them in constellations. “Why is it that I’ve never seen you with a boyfriend?”

“Girlfriend,” Dia deadpanned in response.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Don’t dodge the question.”

Dia laughed under her breath. After the steady parade of girlfriends Ruby had brought home with her over the years, was this really the one she was going to open up to?

Like she’d said, she didn’t have much to lose in the process.

“Do you believe in curses, Yoshiko-san?”

The inner therapist in Dia caught Yoshiko tense up for a brief moment, before falling back into a fabricated kind of calm.

“Sure, why not. There’s a lot of wild shit in the world, what’s a curse or two?”

“Well I never did,” Dia replied. “I always saw them as silly superstition. I still do, on some level. But on another… well, I don’t know anymore. I feel as though I’m cursed to always meet the right people at the wrong time.”

Yoshiko turned to face Dia, a bemused look on her face.

“How does that work?”

“It’s because that’s all I know,” Dia elaborated with a tired excuse for a laugh. “I do it to myself, really. I find people who are broken and then I put them back together. I only get to be around for the low points.”

“A relationship isn’t a therapy appointment though,” Yoshiko remarked in a matter-of-fact tone. If Dia had any less respect for Yoshiko, she’d have taken it to be naivete. Instead, the observation carried some strange kind of wisdom with it. “You don’t have to let someone go as soon as they’re happy.”

Dia smiled.

“You’re not wrong. Maybe I just need a change of perspective.”

“Is that a euphemism for getting laid?” Yoshiko asked bluntly. “Because that usually solves that problem pretty fast.”

A scowl quickly crossed Dia’s face, replacing the smile that had been resting there so easily.

“And for a moment there I almost thought I was starting to like you,” Dia deadpanned in response. She threw back the last of the brandy to punctuate the thought, then pulled her coat tighter. “I should be getting some rest. It’s late.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s fair,” Yoshiko replied, almost indifferently. She heaved a sigh, somewhere between performative and sincere. “Don’t you wanna hear why I asked, though?”

Truthfully, Dia had already forgotten that it had been asked to begin with, but she hummed in thought anyways.

“Fine, I’ve been interested to know. Why did you ask about my love life?”

“Because I can tell Ruby wishes you were happier. I got a bit curious what was getting in the way.” She paused. “I won’t mention any of it to her though, if you don’t want me to.”

“Thanks, Yoshiko-san.”

Dia walked to the door and stepped back inside, leaving Yoshiko to the cold of the night as she returned to her bed, mulling over those words all the while. It was no surprise that Ruby cared for her happiness, but to hear it was an entirely different thing.

Dia slept well that night, but dreamt of shadows dancing on the wall of her bedroom. They were shaped like so many people she knew, yet they were only silhouettes, mere facsimiles of their true selves. They laid out every hope and fear and dream they carried with them, yet no matter what Dia couldn’t quite seem to make out who they really were.

They just danced away, blissfully unaware of the woman who was so desperate to perceive them.


End file.
